It was a morning to make the blood go blithely. There had been a slight frost during the night, and the rough grass in the ditches was stiff and sprinkled with the powdered cold, and the air was brisk in the nostrils. To the right the ground fell away sheerly to the outlying hills bordering the plain, which lay unrolled beneath them like a colored map, with extraordinary clearness, in counties of yellow-green, where the corn was already springing, alternating with territories of good red earth, showing where the leafless vineyards stood. Beyond again lay the dim, dark blue of the sea, and across that, more guessed at than seen, the stencilled shapes of the hills beyond the gulf. Their path, a cobbled Turkish road, ascended steadily, skirting about the edges of the deep ravines, and making detours round the acuter slopes which rose above them to the top of the mountain ridge; and the mules ambled slowly along with their panniers of oranges on either side, while Mitsos and Yanni walked behind, dressed in their roughest peasant clothes, talking of the thousand things of which boys talk. It took them nearly three hours to reach the foot of the last slope on which the village stood, and here they halted for half an hour to eat and drink, in order that they might pass straight through without waiting after giving the message.
Yanni, who knew the village, soon recognized the house to which they were going, which stood somewhat apart from the others, and had a low outlying building a stone's-throw below it.
"That is the house," he said, "and that shed near is the mill. There is a big stream coming down from the mountains there which turns the wheel."
"They should grind quickly, then. Shall we go on?"
The house in question they found was entered from a yard, the door of which was closed, and their knocking only seemed to rouse a dog inside to the top pitch of fury. But at last a woman came out on the wooden balcony overlooking the street, and asked them what they wanted.
"We want Yorgi Gregoriou," shouted Yanni. "Ah, do you not remember me?"
The woman took up a piece of wood and threw it, as a man throws with force and precision, at the dog inside. The barking broke off short in a staccato howl, and Mitsos guessed that she had hit.
"Yanni Mavromichales, is it not?" asked the woman.
"Surely."